When Massachusetts created thefirst board of education in the country in 1837, Horace Mann, the board’s leader, was alarmed by what he found upon inspecting the state schools. As a result, Mann started the Common School Movement to build a system of mass education, paid for by local taxes, to assimilate immigrants and create a national identity, so that children could become productive citizens. He sought a universal education system “one and the same for both rich and poor.”

Some public high school students in New York are sharing their perspectives through open letters, spoken word and poetry. Below we excerpt a few spoken-word stories that were collected by a project called Handwritten and performed at the Bronx Library Ce nter in late April.

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Many of them were addressed “To whom it shouldconcern” because these students — who attend higher performing schools than the ones in the neighborhood where they live — feel their voices aren’t often heard. You can read their stories in full here.

Hebh Jamal, 17, Bronx

Senior, Beacon High School, Manhattan

Will attend The New School

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To whom it should concern,

To the system that refused to challenge me. That refused to call on me when I had a question. That refused to decolonize the minds of students to teach them that Christopher Columbus did not s ail the ocean blue in 1492 to discover anything.

To whom it should concern,

NYC has the most segregated schools in the country. There are forces at work that separate us and say we are equal. Forces at work that build jails based on our third-grade state tests. Forces at work that tell us that this is the land of opportunity and you can be whatever you want, only ... you can’t.

To whom it should concern,

I had to build myself ... myself. The education environment that I was in did not necessarily assist me. It served only to challenge me, and it was not with a worksheet. It was with trying to answer a dire question of what I was doing there.

To whom it should concern,

Your fear that my better tomorrow will be the tomorrow that will undermine you ... is not a noble fear. Your fear is this same fear that makes it harder for students to thrive. It is the same fear that does not allow us an adequate education. It is the same fear that creates segregation in NYC schools. The same fear that makes you refuse our humanity.

Haby Sondo, 17, Bronx

Senior, Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics

Will attend Boston University

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To whom it should concern,

“High School Musical” has always sent chills to my body. The lights, the excitement, the way the characters swiftly moved their bodies, gliding through the hallways of their marble white high school floors. The clean white locker rooms and the picturesque white cafeteria with the blood-red trays and the well-prepared meals always made me envious.

This was not my reality.

My reality is an AP teacher who tells her students who don’t feel prepared enough to take the AP exam that their only job is to not disturb those who are.

My reality is a teacher telling me that I plagiarized a paper due to the sophistication of my writing language.

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My reality is a set curriculum in which teachers are restricted to only teaching for a Regents exam, as if a three-hour test is enough to sum up what a student has retained from the entire school year, as if a student’s complex intelligence can be accurately assessed by bubbling A, B, C, or D.

“High School Musical” and its false hopes are an unreachable dream.

“High School Musical” no longer sends chills to my body.

“High School Musical” is not my reality.

A public school in desperate need of reform is my reality.

Jazmine Williams, 17, Bronx

Senior, Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics

Will attend Goucher College

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To whom it should concern,

In my dilapidated middle school “gifted and talented” classes, I was praised for being one of the only passing students.

But my freshman year at Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics was an academic shock. I finally met my match when I was thrust into Geometry and Chemistry classes. I barely passed Chemistry, and ended up failing Geometry and had to take the class over again. My academic career at M.C.S.M. has been a bumpy road of not being able to get a grasp on just how rigorous the courses in a selective public high school actually are, and not being able to cope with the constant failure I encountered.

To whom it should concern,

Preparing students for the future should begin in middle school because lessons implemented at a young age stick with us for a very long time. Though public schools in N.Y.C. are all governed by the Department of Education, why is it that schools have such different instructional quality and rigor?

To whom it should concern,

All students in N.Y.C. public schools need to have the same academic standards in order to give all students a fighting chance when conquering school.

Brianna Lackwood, 18, Queens

Senior, Midwood High School, Brooklyn

Will attend Brandeis University

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To whom it should concern,

As school became my priority, I grew to learn what to expect from most of my classes: tests. My own curiosity always drove me to learn, but I noticed that my school neglected to instill in its students a love for what they were being taught.

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I am not alone when I say that a standardized test does not reflect the elements of my being. No score can judge my intellect, yet this is how the education system is designed if you wish to move on beyond high school.

Instead of being taught to love and understand math and literature, some are programmed to remember how to integrate a function and recognize context clues in an essay. We are taught to act as machines whose main goal is to ace exams and make teachers and the school look outstanding. With so much emphasis placed on testing, I question how much room is truly left over for genuine learning.

The biggest problem I have deals with the growing divide standardized tests create between the rich and the poor. Students from more affluent backgrounds perform better because of their access to greater opportunities and resources. Allow students to show that they are intelligent through much more than a comprehensive score and G.P.A.

I wish I could just say “do better” and have the education system release its heavy reliance on testing. The problem is that a lot of administrators seem driven by test scores, and not by the potential and success of their students. When did the former become more important than the latter?

William Quizhpi, 18, Bronx

Senior, Beacon High School, Manhattan

Will attend The City College of New York

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I ended up in a public high school 11 miles away from my home in the northeastern Bronx. The long commute was worth it because my high school offered so much more than my zoned school. With a 52 percent graduation rate and only 1 in 4 students going to college, my zoned school did not promise the academic wealth I saw in my American Dream. I have made the most out of my high school experience by working hard and holding tight to my dreams in a school full of rigor and academic enrichment.

Yet it hurts when a school denies you admission because you lack legal standing in the country of freedom and optimistic dreams. It hurts when you apply to more than 20 private colleges that you are more than qualified to attend and get a pile of rejections, few wait lists, and no acceptances. When this happens, you feel as though the plethora of opportunities you imagined when you first moved to the country have dissolved. You feel as if all your hard work has been torn to pieces.

Even though I am constantly told that it has nothing to do with me as a person or student, I feel powerless and completely vulnerable. After crying for weeks, I have decided to let my story to be heard, because it is stories like mine that burden many undocumented students like me in the United States of America.

Only 5 to 10 percent of undocumented students in the United States go to college. By having outside support from my community, I have been privileged to receive preparation for college.

I urge and dream for the communities across this city and this country to be more supportive of undocumented students; to provide necessary counseling services and resources for applying to college. To help undocumented students deal with bullying due to their legal status, and being attacked by ignorant stereotypes.

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Many of us have dreams of bringing change to our families and the communities we left behind. Many of us need love and emotional support in a situation where those in the highest elected offices abhor our presence in this land of freedom and opportunities.